Marketing School | Digital Marketing | Online Marketing

In Episode #129, Neil and Eric discuss the ways you can amplify your content. Listen to learn the tips and tactics you can use to boost your viewership and get that traction you’ve been looking for. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:28 – Today’s topic: How to Amplify Your Content 00:35 – 20% of your time should be spent creating content and 80% marketing it 00:51 – Hand-to-hand combat – Hunter.io or LinkedIn will let you access emails of people of whom you can ask to share your content 01:21 – Groove HQ’s CEO’s strategy was to get people to share their content 01:45 – Use hunter combined with every site you’re linking out to 03:06 – Don’t focus on getting people to link back to you, direct your focus towards getting people to share your content 03:22 – Send emails manually instead of using tools like SendGrid 03:29 – Use HubSpot to track how many email opens you’re getting 04:14 – Try paid advertising like Facebook Ads, Twitter, LinkedIn and Gmail Ads 05:57 – Google and study the “Pinterest Traffic E

In Episode #128, Neil and Eric share tips on how to use Google’s Search Console to grow your traffic. Listen to grow your understanding of the Google Search Console and how Google’s features can help you drive more traffic to your website. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Use Google’s Search Console to Grow your Traffic 00:37 – Google’s Search Console is a free SEO tool from Google 01:05 – Click on the search analytic section to know which clicks you should be getting 01:38 – Sort impressions and look at your CTR 02:37 – You should be using structured data 03:55 – Get started with Rich Cards 04:07 – Look at the crawl errors that are happening on your site 05:10 – Under search appearance, use “accelerate mobile pages” for gaining traffic from mobile 06:31 – Look-up “mobile usability” 07:02 – Look at the regions you’re targeting and select accordingly 08:08 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: Google Search Console has so much to offer for FREE—get acquainted wi

In Episode #127, Neil and Eric talk about the different ways you can combine your content marketing with paid advertising. Listen as they list down pros and cons for different Facebook ads, and the difference between Facebook, LinkedIn, Google and Twitter ad costs. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Combine Content Marketing with Paid Advertising 00:45 – Neil’s favorite strategy is using Facebook fans’ “likes” 01:21 – When you drive paid clicks and you stop paying, you’re not going to get anymore 02:04 – The goal is to have the least amount of fans that create the most amount of engagement 02:30 – “Boost Post” button to Facebook works 03:33 – Look at your Facebook insights 03:51 – Make sure you have a content upgrade – you can use Thrive 04:54 – Spend what you need to get the right campaign/headline that results in the most “shares”, “posts”, “likes”, etc. 05:25 – Eric promotes the page post engagements 06:31 – Think about the channel before investing in paid traffic 07:22 –

In Episode #126, Neil and Eric discuss strategies for setting up a basic re-marketing campaign—what it is, why it works, and how it can drive significant increases in conversion. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Set-up a Basic Re-marketing Campaign 00:37 – Re-marketing is when a page you recently visited shows up in another you’re viewing 01:01 – Make sure you have the right pixel on your site when doing re-marketing 01:10 – Have a Google Tag Manager setup to manage the pixel 01:38 – Create new creative and rotate those createives often to attract more views 02:08 – You can buy stock images from Fotolia 02:16 – A good digital marketer will always have a Venn diagram of the different types of traffic 02:22 – Cold traffic has never heard of your brand before 02:26 – Warm traffic is when they visit your website and join your email list 02:29 – Hot traffic has spent at least a dollar with your brand 02:36 – “You are marketing to people, not objects” and don’t forget it! 03:16

In Episode #125 Neil and Eric talk about the factors you need to consider when setting up a marketing budget. Listen as they illustrate why marketing budgets don’t need to be BIG so long as they adequately accommodate the marketing strategy in place. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to set a marketing budget 00:34 – Bigger companies’ budget vs small companies’ budget 00:52 – Neil doesn’t believe in a marketing budget 01:18 – Your budget should be flexible depending on the results you’re getting 02:24 – The one that spends the most, is the one that wins 03:31 – The budget should be set by internal resources 04:02 – Spend money on things you get results from 04:24 – Explain why you’re capping budgets 05:17 – Neil talks about his and Eric’s trip to Las Vegas 06:32 – Neil is a gambler in business 07:21 – Spend money in the right areas 07:57 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: Your budget should always be flexible. Analyze your marketing campaigns for areas of

In Episode #124 Neil and Eric talk about what you should do when you don’t see the marketing results you were looking for. Listen to learn about the elements you might be missing in the marketing equation, and hear them discuss the common causes for campaigns struggling to yield results. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: What you should do when you’re not seeing marketing results 00:44 – Starting with paid advertising will take you 2-3 months before you start setting any measurable results 01:02 – Be patient, above all be patient—it’s prove to work, but not quickly 01:31 – Your analytics and your data will tell you where your weaknesses are so pay attention to them 01:58 – Ask people questions with the help of Qualaroo 02:15 – Eric shares an example of a company he worked for in the past where the marketing was really struggling 03:01 – A lot of people make the mistake of thinking they’ll hit their targets immediately 03:35 – Not every campaign needs to work, just one or two 03:45

In Episode #123, Neil and Eric discuss the ways you can create form fields that lead to conversion. Listen to know more about which form field strategies actually work and which ideas you can incorporate into your own. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Create Form Fields that Actually Convert 00:41 – Having less form fields will lead to higher conversion rates but quality will go down 01:00 – Break up form fields 02:20 – Your mileage will vary 02:31 – It’s about getting conversions for qualified leads 02:40 – Small tweaks can make a difference 03:32 – Remove the asterisks in your forms 03:41 – Leverage exit pop-ups 04:18 – Add a check mark for “other” options to get more insights 04:55 – Integrate form fields into stories 05:51 – Check out Quick Sprout and Neil Patel for more info on how to optimize form fields 06:16 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: The goal is NOT about getting the most conversions. Breaking up your forms into steps will help you segment y

In Episode #122, Neil and Eric share about how to integrate the holidays into your marketing campaign. Listen as they list down the ways and tactics you can use to get that “most wonderful time of the year” feel in your marketing. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Integrate the Holiday Seasons into your Marketing Campaign 00:37 – Have a holiday calendar 00:53 – Google “Holiday Campaigns” to know what others are doing 01:05 – Offer discounts and promotions 02:10 – Make sure you have your products in stock 02:43 – Promote holiday campaigns in advance 03:44 – Set partnerships and promotions beforehand 04:43 – Have upsells and downsells to maximize profit per user 05:22 – Use contests for holidays 05:35 – KingSumo is one contest platforms you can use 06:09 – Put countdown timers like PlusThis in the emails to set the urgency 06:47 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: Discuss with your team what you can offer for the holiday seasons. Make sure your inventory is full

In Episode #121, Eric and Neil discuss the ways you can improve your PPC campaigns with just 10 minutes per day. Working at your PPC campaigns can be as simple as looking at your keywords’ reports or evaluating your landing page and copy. Listen as they list down different ways you can evaluate and adjust your PPC campaigns with a very small time commitment daily. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic:  00:33 – Regardless of the platform, think about how you can set a framework 00:59 – With AdWords, go through your accounts and pause the things that aren’t working 01:37 – Focus on the landing page and your copy 02:15 – Exit pop ups, do not break Google’s policy 02:40 – Use stock images or check out Design Pickle and see which images you can use for PPC 03:25 – Run a survey 03:50 – Use Qualaroo’s survey tool 04:15 – Look at your keywords reports 05:10 – There are limited resources for PPC 05:33 – Spend on your peak hours 06:38 – Spend money faster to get the results faster 07:01 – Send t

In Episode #120, Neil and Eric share the 7 ways you can become a thought leader. Listen as Neil shares his experience in becoming a thought leader to help you become one as well. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: 7 Ways to Become a Thought Leader 00:36 – Becoming a thought leader requires a mix of everything 01:17 – #1 Don’t just focus on one channel 01:46 – Neil describes how he became a thought leader 02:08 – Find your unique angle 03:22 – Join YEC (Young Entrepreneur Council) 03:45 – Go to LinkedIn and reach out to editors of large publications 04:19 – Using large publications is a bit overused, but still a good tactic 04:25 – #2 Guest post 04:42 – #3 Find your niche 05:36 – #4 Choose the platform you will use 06:49 – #5 Do something that makes you stand out 07:32 – Neil does crazy experiments 07:57 – #6 Take whatever you can 08:57 – #7 Don’t forget to focus on PR 09:39 – Use free solutions with HARO 09:58 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: Find your niche,

In Episode #119, Neil and Eric discuss how you can craft high converting explainer videos for your website. Listen as they help you uncover the feasibility of having explainer videos on every budget and how to craft an excellent explainer video that not only reaches your audience, but gets them hooked on your product. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Craft High converting Explainer Videos 00:38 – You DO NOT need a very high budget 00:45 – Youtube Director allows you to shoot decent videos from your iPhone 01:04 – Video Brewery is a market place for videos 01:24 – Be involved in crafting your videos 01:39 – You need to look at the objections 02:14 – Answering objections isn’t enough, you have to make a story 03:05 – Growth Everywhere’s Squatty Potty is described as an example 04:22 – Short explainer videos don’t get people hooked on your product 05:00 – People get hooked by how you good you are at answering questions and objections, building story, and connecting emotionally

In Episode #118, Neil and Eric drop 7 unorthodox SEO strategies you might be missing out on. Listen to learn what these 7 strategies and tactics are and discern whether these tools can fit your current business’ SEO plan. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: 7 Unorthodox SEO Strategies and Tactics That You Should Try 00:33 – #1 Use Scrapebox to find people within your space that talk about particular topics 01:43 – #2 Tube Buddy will tell you how your video is ranked 02:29 – #3 Brand loyalty—create new ideas to promote brand loyalty 03:29 – #4 Link blending 04:08 – Link to other credible sources beyond your own 04:44 – #5 Neil uses Animagraffs for animated infographics 05:33 – These visual infographics get so many links 06:08 – #6 Write original researched pieces of content 07:25 – #7 Translate your content 08:09 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: Keep coming up with NEW ideas to promote brand loyalty to your consumers. Try NOT to overuse your links—extend to othe

In Episode #117, Neil and Eric share 7 ways you can use Zapier and IFTTT to efficiently speed up workflow. Listen to discover new and effective ways to help you automate your business. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: 7 ways to use Zapier and IFTTT to speed up your workflow 00:36 – Zapier and IFTTT allow you to hook in and connect your web applications 01:08 – IFTTT is targeted more for the consumer while Zapier is more for a B2B 01:27 – #1 Zapier acts as a central location for content and pushes notifications if anything changes or comes up 02:09 – #2 Zapier automatically save tweets on a Google spreadsheet where you can go back to see which messages did well 03:02 – #3 If you’re using BidSketch or Qwilr—when a new proposal is signed, Zapier will create an automatic Quickbooks customer account, notify you on Slack, send an on-boarding email and create a Basecamp project 03:47 – #4 IFTTT sends email notifications when you’re mentioned on other websites 04:43 – #5 When there is a new I

In Episode #116, Neil and Eric list the 7 ways you can optimize your marketing proposals. Listen to learn more about optimizing proposals so you can ace that deal you’ve been aiming for. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: 7 ways to optimize your marketing proposals 00:31 – #1 Don’t talk about how great your company is 01:02 – #2 Don’t assume the decision maker will talk to you 01:23 – Make sure to have case studies in the proposal 01:38 – Show screenshots where the business is messing up 02:00 – #3 Use Qwilr or Bidsketch—this will help you make nice proposals 02:43 – #4 Learn from the people you don’t close 03:27 – #5 People want something customized for them 04:07 – #6 Don’t send people proposals right away 05:16 – #7 Don’t just send the proposal—walk them through it 06:00 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: It’s not about you or your company, it’s about them! Get feedback from the people who didn’t close a deal with you—learn from it. Talk to people in detail before

In Episode #115, Eric and Neil discuss the 7 things you should say NO to as a marketer. Listen to know more about which things to say no to and the reason why. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: 7 things you should say no to as a marketer 00:34 – #1 Making changes without data 00:57 – Make sure you test with data 01:10 – #2 Looking at the tactics all the time 01:26 – Leads to being in “tactical hell” 01:43 – Don’t focus on tactics 02:00 – #3 Don’t make short term gains for long term losses 02:53 – Don’t make changes for short term gains 02:57 – #4 Lack of organization 03:09 – Look at GrowthHackers Projects to organize all your ideas and experiments 03:28 – Look about documenting your marketing processes 03:48 – #5 Don’t do too many things at once 04:51 – #6 Don’t try to take everything on by yourself 05:48 – #7 Don’t run an A/B test on the same part of the funnel more than once at the same time 06:39 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: Don’t EVER make chang

In Episode #114 Eric and Neil discuss how tools create better marketing ROIs for your business. Listen to hear their examples and to better understand that links are a big factor for tools. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: How tools create a better marketing ROI 00:39 – Neil did a test 00:44 – Neil checked Hubspot 01:02 – Leads today from content marketing, conferences, sponsorships and ads 01:09 – During the early days, they got leads from their tools 01:12 – Word Stream also generates leads from their PPC creator 01:19 – Neil’s tool experiment on Quick Sprout 02:31 – Check Walkscore through Ahrefs and you’ll find a lot of anchor text going back to their site 02:56 – Don’t do black area 03:28 – Neil shares what he knows on Walkscore 03:55 – They created a tool 04:15 – How realtors helped Walkscore build links 04:40 – Realtors were able to use Walkscore as selling point 05:00 – Using links and badges these days can be hit by Google 05:46 – Don’t use tools for mischievous

In Episode #113 Eric and Neil talk about whether or not you should hire a PR agency for your business. Listen to know the pros and cons that are tied to hiring a 3rd party agency and why PR is not for new companies that are just starting out. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: Should I hire a PR agency for my business? 00:44 – If you’re first starting out, don’t expect a launch to take you a long distance 01:19 – Neil shares his negative PR experiences 02:05 – The best way to hire a PR person is to have them work full time for you 02:13 – Neil shares more of his PR experiences 03:53 – Find a person to do PR – do not find companies 04:17 – Eric shares his PR experiences 04:36 – The PR industry is antiquated 04:37 – Neil recommended Chris Barrett to Eric 06:01 – PR makes sense if the costs make sense 07:01 – If you’re looking for PR people, check out: Janine from Fresh PR and Richard Lorenzen 07:39 – Your goal is to graduate from an agency and hire in-house 08:01 – That’s it for tod

In Episode #112 Eric and Neil share their insights on when and where it’s worth investing your time in the pursuit of long tail keywords. Listen to understand what long-tail keywords are, what they are compared to, and how their strategic implementation can always help you rank. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: Is it really worth going after long tail keywords? 00:36 – Long tail keywords are 3-5 word phrases people are searching for 01:06 – Head term vs long tail keywords 01:35 – Wikipedia’s Abraham Lincoln page as an example 02:35 – Brian Dean’s 1M search results 03:28 – Long tail phrases are worth it 04:08 – Don’t think about long tail content 04:28 – Use Ahrefs to see long tail traffic that comes to your site 04:43 – When your content is older, you’ll start ranking for long tail phrases 04:50 – Use your Google Search Console 06:17 – Continually update content you already have 06:57 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: Long tail keywords are worth using. Long tail

In Episode #111 Eric and Neil help you decide whether you should or should not repurpose your content to bring to followers in. Listen to learn what the advantages and disadvantages are, and the truth about Google’s penalties for replicated content. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:27 – Today’s topic: Should you repurpose your content? 00:39 – Maximize your investment by repurposing 01:04 – Posting on multiple platforms is repurposing 01:15 – Repurposing helps you get eyes in other areas 01:37 – Not all form of content should be text based 01:42 – Misconception on Google for duplicate content 02:11 – Make sure to link back to the original source 03:29 – Splinter out posts and create more content 03:52 – Google content repurposing workflow 04:30 – Think about the monetization aspect of your business 05:20 – Medium and Quora rewrites certain answers 05:52 – Using Rev to transcribe podcast episodes 06:02 – That’s it for today’s episode! 3 Key Points: Repurposing content doesn’t mean you post the s

In Episode #110 Eric and Neil share their highlights from the past 100 podcast episodes. Apart from sharing what they’ve learned and what they’ve experienced, they’ll also thank all the listeners for being part of this journey with them! Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:26 – Today’s topic: Our biggest lessons from 100 episodes of marketing school 00:46 – #1 When you first launch a podcast, you won’t get too much traction 01:17 – As you do it more and more, people start to listen 01:52 – No huge ‘bang for your buck’ on the first 100 episodes 02:06 – #2 Great feedback but with couple of negative ones 03:11 – #3 People who launch a podcast for the sake of making one doesn’t do so well 03:41 – You have to have an audience to push it through 04:02 – #4 Consistency takes a lot of work 05:15 – #5 Blog audience helps the success of this podcast 06:03 – It’s not easy to get a lot of downloads and listens 06:22 – #6 Podcasting is just like blogging 07:11 – #7 Time buys you listens and traffic 08:24 –